REVIEW 625: VISHWAROOP 2

(Note: This film was shot simultaneously
with the same cast in two languages, and has been released as Vishwaroopam II in Tamil and Vishwaroop II in Hindi. Here is my
review of the Hindi version, Vishwaroop
II.)

When Kamal Haasan
is good, he is so good that he has the ability to transport the viewer to
another realm. From a boy in a forbidden relationship in K. Balachander’s Apoorva Raagangal (1975) to the country
bumpkin in love with the only educated girl in his village in Bharathiraja’s 16 Vayathinile (1977), and the bitter,
brooding, idealistic unemployed youth whose scintillating chemistry with the
great Sridevi scorched the screen in Balachander’s Varumaiyin Niram Sivappu (1980), over the years he has invested
himself in some wonderful roles in wonderful films – mostly in Tamil, some in
Telugu – with directors who had a significant point to make.

There is not enough space here
for an exhaustive list of Haasan’s best works, but it will remain one of life’s
eternal questions why this artistic giant has wasted so much of the past 30
years on gimmicky films instead of devoting himself entirely to the raw,
soul-searching performances he is respected for – the sort you will not find in
his latest venture.

Vishwaroop II is the Hindi version of the Tamil Vishwaroopam II, both of which were shot
simultaneously with the same actors and are a follow-up to 2013’s Vishwaroopam/Vishwaroop. In the previous
film, Wisam Ahmad
Kashmiri (Haasan) is leading a double life in New York, as a Kathak teacher who
is, in reality, a RAW agent. Nirupama (Pooja Kumar) is bored of her marriage of
convenience with this older man until she discovers his truth. Wisam’s
encounters with the Al Qaeda terrorist Omar (Rahul Bose) end in the latter’s
escape.

Vishwaroop
II spends a
considerable part of its pre-interval portion recounting what happened in Part 1. This proves to be a drag for those
who have seen that film, and while I cannot speak on behalf of those who have
not, the flashbacks are so sketchy that I do not see how they could have served
the purpose for which they are placed there.

Anyway, in the
present day, Wisam, his young protégé Ashmita (Andrea Jeremiah), Colonel
Jagannath (Shekhar Kapur) and Nirupama once again run into Omar who is out for
revenge against Wisam while also planning a cataclysmic event in the UK that
would put 9/11 in the shade. Somewhere between saving the world and himself,
Wisam manages to woo his wife and bond with his mother (Waheeda Rahman).

Vishwaroopam II is too ordinary to be
worthy of a detailed critique. It makes a fleeting mention of Islamophobia, but
in a month that has given us Anubhav Sinha’s brilliant Mulk, that argument, though reasonably well made, is too marginal to merit
a discussion. I suppose you could say the crux of the film is to remind us that
Haasan at 63 has still got what it takes to be a hero in an all-out commercial
film, but all the gravity-defying stunts in the world cannot mask the
superficiality of this storyline, the mundaneness of its thriller elements, the
lack of a spark between Haasan and Kumar, Ashmita’s irritating effort to imply
that she is romantically involved with Wisam
(towards which end she even makes a distasteful reference to rape) or the
all-round tackiness of the production quality.

For all its failings,
at least Vishwaroop had its slick art
design (in that dance studio in New York and in Omar’s hideout on the
Afghanistan-Pakistan border) going for it, in addition to memorable
choreography by Birju Maharaj and impressive fight scenes. Here, the fake
studio backdrops at certain places are so glaringly obvious that I wanted to
weep at the thought of a legendary thespian even bothering with this project.
Yes, I get that Indian films are made at a milli-fraction of the budget
available to Hollywood, but so many of our cinematic works look technically
rich, including several
in Haasan’s own career, that this excuse does not cut ice.

The mediocrity extends to the
story, the storytelling, the research, the music and the sound design. In a
scene in an assisted living facility, a nurse is shown almost pestering an
Alzheimer’s patient to dip into her memory. Even someone with a basic knowledge
of Alzheimer’s Disease will tell you that that is an absolute no-no. Elsewhere,
in a closed room supposedly in the UK, horns can be heard blaring loudly and
incessantly outside – the sound designer appears to have forgotten that
constantly honking is a congenital Indian
disorder and that the streets of Britain are far calmer than ours. The
entire cast’s acting is unremarkable, and the women in particular are mere
appendages to Wisam. Jeremiah is attractive and agile while walloping a
villain, but does not have enough such scenes in the film.

The low point of Vishwaroop II is the terrible singing of
a number titled Tu srotu haiby
Haasan, Kaushiki Chakraborty and Karthik Suresh Iyer. While Haasan shouts in
places to camouflage his struggle to sing, Chakraborty and Iyer screech when
the pitch goes high.

Sadly, Haasan has
no one to blame but himself for this misadventure since he is the producer, director
and writer
(the dialogues for the Hindi version are by Atul Tiwari).

I love Kamal Haasan. I do. I was
a kid when I cried for his character Raja as he assured his best friend that he
was not in love with her in Ramesh Sippy’s Saagar
(1985), one of the few Hindi films he did that I thought deserved him. I
laughed till I died at his antics in the dialogueless Pushpak Vimana (1987). And just recently, when he stepped into
Mohanlal’s role in Papanasam (2015),
the Tamil remake of the Malayalam blockbuster Drishyam starring Lalettan, he did indeed remind us that he still
has what it takes to play the leading man in an all-out commercial film without
the crutch of a double role, a triple role, 10 roles, a lover who looks young
enough to be his child, a heavy use of prosthetics or excessive reliance on an
action director that have been the USPs of too many of his films from the 1990s
onwards. All he needs to do is stay as nicely physically fit as he is now, rely
on his tremendous acting talent, pick dependable directors and solid scripts.
Maybe someone needs to write a mystery thriller on why the iconic Kamal Haasan
does not get that.

Apart from the shock value of the
extreme violence it features and a vital statement about
fundamentalism-versus-education, Vishwaroop
II has nothing new to offer. It is a scar on Haasan’s filmography and a
dead bore.

Rating
(out of five stars): *1/2

CBFC Rating (India):

UA

Running time:

2 hours 21 minutes

Footnote
about the Censor rating: A UA rating makes no sense considering the nature of the
violence in the film. Among other disturbing visuals, Vishwaroop II shows us repeated close-ups of gory wounds, daggers
piercing eyes and necks, and a lingering shot of a man whose throat has just
been smashed with a fist. While you cannot help but wonder whether it helped the
film that the Censor Board chief is its lyricist, to be fair, this rating is in
keeping with the hypocrisy of India’s film rating system which has for long now
deemed violence, sexual innuendo, sexism, extreme misogyny including rape jokes
and casual assaults on women in male-centric, big-banner commercial projects UA-worthy,
while explicit depictions of sex between consenting adults are usually given A (Adults
Only) certificates. More recently, with Veere Di Wedding, we saw the CBFC stamping an A rating on women just talking
about sex and masturbating.

For more on this, you could read
my column headlined “Consistently Inconsistent” written in 2015 – nothing has
changed since then:

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About Me

Anna MM Vetticad is an award-winning journalist, journalism teacher and author of the critically acclaimed bestseller The Adventures of an Intrepid Film Critic, an overview of the Hindi film industry presented through an account of a year in which she watched every single Bollywood film released in India’s National Capital Region. A journalist since 1994, she has worked with India Today, The Indian Express and Headlines Today. At HT she hosted her own interview show Star Trek which drew all India’s eminent entertainment personalities. While Anna has spent most of her career as a behind-the-scenes editorial person, she has also reported on most major Indian entertainment and lifestyle events and several international ones including Cannes and the Oscars, in addition to being the film critic for Headlines Today. She is currently reporting and writing for multiple publications on cinema and social issues with a focus on gender concerns. The Adventures of an Intrepid Film Critic is available on amazon.com, ebay.in, flipkart.com, ombooksinternational.com, ombooks.com, infibeam.com, homeshop18.com and dialabook.in among other websites, and in stores across India. Twitter: @annavetticad